44 MINUTES TO SAVOUR AS THE DEMON REACHES 2ND MASTERS 1000 SEMI FINAL

I am not sure if stunned is the word, but for those of us that sat courtside on Friday afternoon, it was a collective - is this match really going this quickly? what the hell is going on? It's a Masters 1000 quarter final for goodness sake! Surely we are going to get a contest between the 8th and 15th seeds.

Alex de Minaur was a man on a misson as he demolished Grigor Dimitrov 6-0, 6-0, the first time he had registered that scoreline in his career. It was over before it started. The post match interview on court posed the thought that Dimitrov was physically impeded, but that wasn't confirmed by the Bulgarian because he didn't do media after the match.

As de Minaur mentioned, all he could control was his side of the court and he did so superbly, where as Dimitrov could only manage one winner for the match and made unforced error after another.

The demon came in to Monte Carlo 29-32 on clay, the only surface with a below .500 record, but continuing on from last year where he went 10-5 in the claycourt season, in his own words he is more and more comfortable on the surface and feels he can do some real damage, not just here in Monte Carlo, but the whole swing through to Paris.

He is the first player since the format's introduction in 1990 to win an ATP Masters 1000 match from quarter finals onwards with a 6-0, 6-0 scoreline and he is the first player to win 20 tour matches in 2025. He moves up to 7 in the live rankings.

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Next to conquer will be Italian 13th seed Lorenzo Musetti who came from a set down to knock out three time champion Stefanos Tsitsipas 1-6, 6-3, 6-4 in front of a passionate Italian crowd who flock to this tournament in droves across the border.

He also had doubles to play Friday, and it would be fair to say he was quite fresh, teaming up with German Jan-Lennard Struff the pair went down 6-3, 3-6, 10-2 to top seeds Pavic/Arevalo.

He came straight into press to chat to us:

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For the other Aussie in action today, the curtain came down on Alexei Popyrin's week, one in which he found some form with three consecutive wins, coinciding with new coaching addition Wayne Ferreira being courtside.

Today though, he faced former finalist of this event and a tough opponent on clay in Alejandro Davidovich Fokina going down 6-3, 6-2, making 31 unforced errors, but plenty to like this week and hopefully a turning point as he searches for a spot in the top 20.

Davidovich Fokina will play Carlos Alcaraz in the other semi-final after the 2nd seed from a set down got past exciting Frenchman Arthur Fils 4-6, 7-5, 6-3. Bring on those two playing more matches together in the future.

And bring on Saturday semi-final day. The organisers are worried about Sunday here with rain forecast for the final, but first to determine the finalists. Let's hope it can be our Aussie who in his last five sets has gone 6-3, 6-2, 6-2, 6-0, 6-0.

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